Playing like a mix between Diablo and a squad-based RTS, Dungeon Siege remains an extremely compulsive game to this day. You're given a slew of options to customize your party's behavior in combat, to the point where it's possible to sit back and only occasionally intervene, perhaps to resurrect a fallen comrade or cast a debuff. This level of automation was criticized by some reviewers at the time, who argued it made the experience trivial. However, if you play DS on Hard difficulty and perhaps avoid filling all eight party slots, you're probably going to die a lot. Still, this is a mostly relaxing game where your level of involvement depends entirely on you - it's possible to make wacky class combinations with the right balance.
There are undeniably tedious moments in the game, and some dungeons seem to stretch on forever. But the sheer relief of finally emerging in the light of day, every single inventory crammed with loot, is the kind of catharsis I've not experienced in any other game. What Dungeon Siege manages to accomplish is feel like a robust, world-spanning journey, without easy shortcuts and convenient "teleport to merchant" abilities. All that remains is pushing forward, numerous environments and thousands of monsters separating you from the source of evil. And it just works.

Results:
Ehb campaign, once on Normal and once on Hard

With mods, this easily becomes the single best alternative to playing MC. Minetest is technically not a game, but a voxel engine which serves as a platform to make games. It's very simple to download fan projects right from the main menu and start playing them. The community is active and often creative - besides the expected imitations of MC survival mode (VoxeLibre, Mineclonia), there are linear games with stories or challenging puzzles. I expect the library of content will only continue to grow.